The following announcement appeared on The Accomplished Members a few days ago.

I'm wondering if this means Poetry Magazine has lifted it's refusal to accept poetry which has appeared in any venue on The Internet or if we were wrong in these two recent threads
http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtm...ML/002670.html
and http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtm...ML/002671.html

about what their guideline regarding "appeared online" and "anywhere, in any form" really meant.

We cannot consider anything that has been previously published or accepted for publication, anywhere, in any form. Work that has appeared online is considered to have been previously published and should not be submitted.
http://www.poetrymagazine.org/about/guidelines.html


Anyone have a clue?



[This message has been edited by Laura Heidy-Halberstein (edited July 30, 2008).]

(See this is "edit" mode -- I've added the code to try to keep this thread hidden)

I've no idea. I certainly don't say hey this is great, because it survived the deep end on my submission letters. Nearly everything I have published since the inception of the deep end has been workshopped there, disappeared from its archives in due course, and no editor has ever raised the issue. We're talking about 150 poems, so this is not a small sample. If any editor ever objects, I'll send the work elsewhere.

Nah, I know that, Tim. Most of do the same.....it's just that there's been such a big deal made of Poetry's policy here and on various other poetry and/or submission sites as well as in Poet's Market, that I was just wondering how others felt about it. As far as I know Poetry's the only magazine which has such a hard and fast rule about it - most other places do not consider workshopping as publishing, and rightly so, if you ask me. (But of course, no one ever does.)

I'm wondering if most people just ignore the submission guideline - knowing that pruning takes place and that all threads are removed over time and trusting that the few remaining editors who DO care aren't out there googling away. I, personally, don't see them as wasting the time - and for what, anyhow?

Does anyone else really think it matters if a poem's been workshopped online and was available for reading for a brief period of time to a small number of people?

Good call, Roger. Though of course, since Tim's original post has been sitting on AM for several days now, the issue is moot. Google will definitely have been by and indexed the page by now. But it's a useful reminder: we should all be careful about cutting and pasting other people's words from one thread or forum to another. I'm sure it doesn't matter in Tim's case, but it might for others.

As for whether your intervention succeeds, that will depend on whether the site was being scanned at the time. If you beat Google's robots to the punch, then yes; otherwise no.

As for the larger question, I think it's a silly policy. Poetry is "well endowed," so they may continue to publish with paper and glue for longer than others, but I suspect that e-zine publishing will indeed be the way of the future. There's still the tricky question of how to make that pay, but I think that the sheer pressure of numbers will eventually drive everyone on line. We are living in a transitional time.

Steve C.

Don't ask, don't tell.

Nemo

A little bit of clarification from the assistant poetry editor at Poetry... .or maybe it just muddies the water even more, I dunno.
http://www.poets.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11671

I could email Fred, but why? Let sleeping dogs lie. I think underpaid, overworked, harrassed assistant poetry editors have better things to do than punch their way through Google's robots.

Poetry Magazine's poetry or prose publication agreement: Paragraph 5: The author further represents and warrants that the Work has not previously been published, in part or in whole, in any medium in the US or abroad.

My position is that my workshopping here does not constitute publication. That is all of our positions. No problem.

Yes, let sleeping dogs lie. We should assume their policy is the same as everyone else's policy: published means published (or, at least, posted permanently on a website), not discussed in a workshop plus (ultimately) deleted "unarchived". Any other position would be too extreme so ... it's perfectly reasonable to assume their position is reasonable, not extreme.

Apparently it's not Fred's policy, however.

Fred Sasaki wrote:
If the workshop is closed--that is if one has
to enter a password to read it, or the website is an education tool
restricted to enrolled members--then we can still consider the work.
If I can find the poem through Google, then we cannot consider it.
Maybe a more apt rule is a Google rule of some kind.


http://www.poets.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11671

And that's it from me....I'll shut up now. I'm unpopular enough already.

L

Maybe you call it Poetry, but that last Sasaki piece just looked like a website post with line breaks.

Well, unless they are more adept at Google than I am, which is possible, Tim's all clear because I can't find the poem on Google.

I don't know about present policy of "The Raintown Review" but I was very impressed when Harvey Stanbrough told me that he actually liked to publish work that had been published elsewhere. He said a good poem improved with reading and that readers liked the surge of recognition they experienced when they came upon a good familiar poem. I think he was right.
Janet

I think that's part of my point - or my question. Tim mentioned that Alan changed the title....and most poems are only searchable by the title...or perhaps the first line, but I doubt any editor would bother doing the second, even if he were so inclined to do the first. I think it's probably more an honor system sort of deterrent at best.
The way it's worded on the submission site - it's pretty much open to interpretation. Maybe that's what was intended all along.

Just to be on the safe side, though, maybe we ought to consider not titling anything we intend to send to Poetry.

Since I've not got the nerve to send them anything more than once every 2 or three years and I've already gotten my tri-annual rejection, I doubt I'll worry much about it for awhile.

All the 'don't ask, don't tell' folks are right. The notion of an internet workshop is probably rather foreign, and I doubt anyone would get too inquisitorial about the Sphere. So let's just shut up, 'kay?

(And I say this with all due respect, Lo. But really, I think if this is a sleeping dog, it's an annoying toy chihuahua. The thing's annoying and micturates on the carpet. Let it rest.)

Quincy)

I think poets should take to heart the old adage(would it be an adage? what's an adage?)'Vote early and vote often'. Me, I flog my poems as often as I can, mostly for a pittance, sometimes for nothing, but AS OFTEN AS I CAN. I urge my fellow poets to do likewise. TReat your verse chldren as bits of journalism, and the editor Janet quoted, he has the right idea. The great Les Murray says, 'a different hemisphere doesn't count'. The other thing you can do is to CUT THEM UP. Alexander Pope is my model. Cut them up and sell them bit by bit. Tim's got something going here. 150 poems workshopped and placed. THAT's what I call poetry! Did I tell you that EVERY ONE of the poems in 'Being the Bad Guy' had been sold somewhere, sometimes more than once. Didn't I say? It's true nonetheless. Having said that I haven't won any money for BLOODY MONTHS. I'm getting twitchy. A guy called James Michie used to give me loads of £25 prizes for the Spectator. But he died of being so old. The new ones don't know what they're doing. They don't give me the money. Tste is a thing of the past. BASTARDS! That's the attitude to have. You lot are so GOOD. Stop being so modest. The stuff here is much better than most of the published stuff. This is degenerating into a rant and I haven't had my dinner yet.

[This message has been edited by John Whitworth (edited July 31, 2008).]

Well said, John.
Personally, I have always felt that when a magazine dies (as formalist journals are so prone to do), anything published in it is eligible to be published again, and probably no one outside these (virtual) walls will have read it before.

He said a good poem improved with reading and that readers liked the surge of recognition they experienced when they came upon a good familiar poem. I think he was right.
Janet

Janet, I agree entirely.

The idea that once a new poem (or any other art work) has been exposed to any degree of public view it is "old", or is in some way compromised by its exposure, is a very childish one, in my view.

How often do we re-read the same old poems, over and over? And if they are really good, we find that we can never wear them out.

But today, in many places (like Poetry) for a poem to be once seen in public is to be declared dead. For me, is the sign of a childish, immature culture, obsessed only with the "new, new, new."

The great Les Murray says, 'a different hemisphere doesn't count'.

John, with all respect to the great man, this statement belongs to a lost world - ancient history. With web-mag publishing, there is only one hemisphere. And it's really the only place to publish poems today.

Laura. Rest assured you are very popular, I for one delight in reading your grumpy posts.
--anyway I think popularity is over rated and that you are smart enough to understand that talent can go under any title.
The same goes for the poems; never post the finished draft and title in a workshop for a little praise.

My mother used to say 'What the eye doesn't see, te heart won't grieve for.' I assume what Les meant was that publication in 'Quadrant' needn't prevent me trying again in the UK. It doesn't. There is a particular joy in selling the same poem twice, or even thrice.

Ah, I see what you mean about the hemispheres, John.

It is amazing to hear you speak of money for poems. How do you do it?

I once received $50 for a poem, years ago - and from an Oz mag, too!

But nothing since.

One of my problems is that I lack the money-making gene - and the very last thing I am is a salesman/businessman.

I sort of feel that if I got myself into the business of trying to make money from hawking poems around, I might as well cut to the chase and get a job with an insurance company.

Also, given the nature of the world, there are plenty of folk out there who can spot a possible buck, and no agent has ever tried to sign me on - which I take as a sure sign that there just ain't no bucks in po-biz.

Well, let's be accurate here - no bucks for the likes of my stuff.

Money for poems:

Quadrant pays
Poetry Review pays
The Spectator pays
The TLS pays (never had anything there till I came second in the competition).

Various other magazines slip twenty quid in your envelope.

There are poetry competitions. I enter most of them. Haven't won much lately but I have won between £500 and £1000 about five times and other prizes say about twenty times.

The Spectator competitions - won about a dozen £25 though none lately it's true

Won £25 at The Oldie once - The Oldie is actually quite a good magazine

Won £25 at New Statesman once

I think the reason quite a lot of British magazines pay is because they get grants from the Arts Council. Not so much now because all the money's gone to the Olympic Games, curse them.

Sometimes poets are paid to write a poem. That's happned to me sometimes (the BBC)and it happens to Wendy Cope a lot and Carol Ann Duffy a lot Sophie Hannah quite a lot. All women - I wonder why that is.

You couldn't LIVE on this but it's nice, don't you think. Of course you have to be a light verse person or else Andrew Motion to do at all well.

[This message has been edited by John Whitworth (edited August 02, 2008).]

I think it's very nice. Man does not live by bread alone, but getting a little bread for your poetry is nice as eating hot cross buns, one a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns. With lots of drippy butter.

Except for prize money, I have never had monetary rewards from the US, but over the years I have been paid from England, Canada, Sweden and (I think) Finland. In the US it seems to be the policy that one person wins a jackpot, and the rest get nada. Whereas in countries (read European/Canadian) where art is (I think) viewed as one of the basic rights of citizenship, rewards are spread a little more evenly.

Our pendulum is swinging again though, and it will get worse before it gets better.

But I am always reading that in the US, every college has a Poet-in-Residence and every self-respecting church and hospital, not to mention town and state, seems to have its very own Poet Laureate. I've often wondered what their duties are.

Do they look up suitable secular quotes for the minister's sermon?

Do they read to hospital patients comforting verses like "He is not Dead" - James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916) American poet, staff of Indianapolis Journal, called ‘poet laureate of democracy’ according to Google. There ought to be some money connected to that honorable title, doncha think, John?

(And congrats for all the bread delivered to your door.)

I don't know about elsewhere but here in Alexandria, Va. the Poet Laureate position is a three year contract with the poet receiving $500.00 a year. So far all I can tell is that she's expected to read a few poems (not necessarily her own) at political and cultural affairs - such as building openings and Poetry Month at the library - and to write a few poems "celebrating" various historical places or events here in Alexandria.

The woman holding the position currently is the first "Poet Laureate" this city's ever had - and I think she's two years into it. I'm unsure of what happens when her term is done...maybe it's open for application or maybe it's just one more appointed political type position - nothing I can read on the city's web site gives any real information.

Lo

P.S. I've read the few poems she's written for the city so far - personally, I'm not too impressed - no form, no meter and what's worse, no real content, either. Altho, to be fair, I'm not sure I'd be able to do a better job celebrating some ancient event or some current building project. I don't think it's easy to "write on demand."



[This message has been edited by Laura Heidy-Halberstein (edited August 02, 2008).]

I believe the salary of the Poet Lauriate is $30,000 per year, unchanged for forty years, insufficient even to rent an apartment in DC from which to operate.

Boy, you can say that again!!! I don't know what the cost of living is in other places (except for Indiana, of course) but I'd have to bet that the DC metro area is one of the most expensive places in The United States in which to reside. I hear California is worse, but I'd have to see it to believe it. $30,000 a year here would qualify one for low-income housing. IF one could get on the waiting list.

Anyone who takes the Poet Laureate position needs to have another source of income - and a pretty good one at that - or he/she needs to commute from somewhere else a few times a year and let that pretty office space in The Library of Congress sit empty the rest of the time.

edited to add Ok, I looked it up again - the salary HAS been increased - from $30,000 a year to a whopping $35,000 a year - plus a $5,000 travel allowance. Big bucks now, guys, big bucks.


[This message has been edited by Laura Heidy-Halberstein (edited August 02, 2008).]

Lo, the first time Mr. Parnassus held the job, he did rent an apartment in Georgetown and seriously apply himself to the job. But the royalties from Candide and the Molieres were rolling in, and the rent was $700 month. Now a nice hotel runs that for a weekend.

Today you could not rent a parking space in Georgetown (if you could even find one to rent) for $700.00 a month at present day rates. Rents here are outrageous - as are housing prices in general, in spite of the bubble bursting. Dan pays more in monthly condo fees then my entire mortgage payment was back in Indiana.

My cousin in Ohio recently graduated college and is looking for a teaching job. She says there are none in her part of Ohio but that she's being actively persued by the DC school system. They are offering her twice the starting salary she could expect from a beginning position in Massillon, Ohio and she's excited about the possibility. It's more money than she's ever dreamed of making. What she has no understanding of is the reality that says twice the salary will only hold half the value. The reason DC is recruiting in the Midwest is they cannot find anyone who lives here for any length of time who still thinks they will be able to exist on a teacher's salary. It's just not possible.

Ugh.